8 years after Hurricane Juan, Point Pleasant Park still looked ragged in 2011.

In September 2003, Hurricane Juan swept through Nova Scotia like a giant chainsaw, wreaking havoc from Halifax’s Point Pleasant Park, inland across the province, all the way to PEI.

After White Juan in Kentville. We had a lot of fun digging out.

Five months later, in February 2004, a “weather bomb” dumped a metre of snow on Nova Scotia and was unofficially named White Juan after the previous season’s hurricane. It paralyzed much of the province for several days as citizens dug out.

Rendering of the storm off Nova Scotia at 6 pm on March 26, showing wind direction and barometric pressure, from http://earth.nullschool.net/

Today’s nor’easter has been unofficially dubbed “Juan-a-be”. Meteorologists apparently learned a lot from White Juan, and had this storm pegged to be a similarly serious weather event far in advance. Apparently all their computer models were pointing to the same story; that a low pressure system would form off Cape Hatteras and move up the coast, walloping Nova Scotia with wind, snow, rain and then more snow.

And so it has come to pass. One can only marvel at the science that can predict such things. Everyone was talking about the storm for days. We took it for granted that school would be cancelled. The bread shelves in the grocery store were emptied by shoppers preparing for power outages. All day, my Facebook feed was mostly about the storm, with people staying connected to each other even while isolated by impassible drifts.

The snow came sideways, starting this morning and continuing all day. It continues to blow even harder, having backed to the north, though less snow is falling.

Most of our winter storms this year have happened on Wednesdays!

In the late afternoon, at high tide, I made an excursion down the road to see what damage the storm surge might cause. The snow stung my face and the wind bent me over as I trudged along. In sections sheltered by evergreens on both sides of the road, the snow lay quiet and even, untouched by blade of plough or rubber tire. Elsewhere, the wind had swept the road bare.

Approaching the Oak Island causeway, I saw that the storm surge would not damage the road, even though the water level was high, because there was still ice along the shore which buffered the energy of the waves. The northeast winds did not travel far across water and did not raise high enough waves to do damage here.

Two snow days in a row! The kids are happy. We have about 35cm/14″ of fluffy stuff on the ground. We’re glad we stayed on top of it yesterday during the storm, plowing the driveway twice, clearing the entrance after the snowplow went by, and keeping the car near the road and shoveled out, ready to go.

On Feb. 1, the morning sun illuminates the Bay. Photo taken from the causeway to Oak Island, looking north. Oak I. is on the right.

There was a soft dusting of snow on everything on Sunday (above). Then on Tuesday came the biggest snowstorm of the season so far. Schools were closed 2 days in a row. In a storm like that, I feel I’m in a time warp – life seems suspended somehow, even though I was in my usual place in my home office, and the power stayed on, and the internet offered my usual window on the world. Surrounded by the energy of weather, it felt like the inside of a cocoon.